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September 23, 2024

Boots claims 3rd consecutive British National title

Fresh from his podium finish at the 1:8 Offroad World Championship in Spain, Sworkz’ Elliott Boots clinched his third consecutive British National RallyX Championship title at a rain effected season finale hosted by NEMO Raceway over the weekend. Securing the TQ ahead of Xray’s Jonathan Skidmore, bad weather would see the finals cancelled and the Round 5 result declared on the best 2 from 4 qualifiers. With 149 drivers scoring points over this year’s BRCA National Championship in the overall ranking it was Team Associated’s Neil Cragg, who qualified P4 at NEMO, who finished runner-up with 2021 Champion Skidmore completing the season’s podium.

Image: BRCA [Facebook]

September 22, 2024

Balestri retains 1:8 Onroad European C/ship Title

Infinity’s Dario Balestri has retained his EFRA 1:8 Onroad European Championship title, the Italian claiming the title for a fourth time with victory at Miniautodromo Locorotondo in Italy. Qualifying fifth and having to come through the Semi Finals, winning his encounter, the reigning World Champion would line 5th for the 45-minute decider behind the Top 4 direct qualifiers. While the Mugen Seiki of Top Qualifier Simon Kurzbuch lead way the field, the Swiss driver’s quest to retake the title he last held in 2018 ended in the first round of fuel stops. With his engine running lean, he suffered a glow plug failure dropping him to last from where he could only recover to eventually finish 6th. A race that saw a number of contacts between drivers, leading to a post race protest against Balestri which EFRA would reject, despite being on a three tyre stop strategy Balestri would take the win by 2 seconds from his 2-stop team-mate Carmine Raiola. Suffering a crash earlier in the race after contact with Serpent’s Andrea Catanzani in which he then got collected by Raiola, 1:8 GT World Champion Toni Gruber would take his damaged Capricorn to the final podium position only half a lap down. Winner of the Last Chance Final to secure P11 on the grid, Lamberto Collari came through to take P4 followed by Xray’s Filippo Domanin.

Image: EFRA [Facebook]

September 20, 2024

Kurzbuch Top Qualifier at 1:8 European Championship

Mugen Seiki’s Simon Kurzbuch is the Top Qualifier at the EFRA 1:8 Onroad Championship. The former World Champion came out top of the 5-rounds of qualifying at the Miniautodromo Locorotondo in Italy, where 4 different drivers posted TQ runs. Thursday’s opening day of qualifying would see defending Champion Dario Balestri kick off proceedings by taking his Infinity to a TQ run before Kurzbuch posted the first of his two TQ in Q2. Friday’s second day of qualifying would open with the Serpent of Practice Top Seed Andrea Catanzani topping the times sheet for Q3 before Kurzbuch went on to take Q4. With the overall TQ wide open going into the fifth & final round, it would be Infinity’s Carmine Raiola who set the pace from the Capricorn of Toni Gruber, Kurzbuch, Catanzani and Balestri. With 3 from 5 to count overall, Kurzbuch was declared the Top Qualifier from Catanzani with the all important Top 4 direct Main Final qualifiers being completed by Raiola and Gruber, the latter’s 1-2 in Q5 knocking Balestri back to P5. The 22nd running of European Championship will be decided tomorrow over 45-minutes with Kurzbuch going for his second title having previously won it in 2018 when the race was also held in Italy.

Image: Simon Kurzbuch [Facebook]

September 17, 2024

2024 1:8 Offroad World C/ship Chassis Focus Index

With the dust now settled on the 19th running of the IFMAR 1:8 Offroad World Championships at RC Redovan, we have put together a full index of all the buggies we were given access to to photograph for our ‘Chassis Focus’ during our time in Spain. We were able to feature buggies from 8 different manufacturers with Xray and Kyosho notably absent from the list with both manufacturers not allowing their buggies to be photographed in detail. Of the 180 drivers competing, it was Xray that proved the most popular brand with 33 buggies, just one more than Sworkz who were the brand with the greatest representation in the final filling 3 of the 13 spots on the starting grid. With 27 buggies, Mugen Seiki was the third most used chassis. Coming away with its 3rd consecutive 1:8 Buggy World title, Team Associated was fourth in terms of numbers with 18 driver while Tekno completed the Top 5 represented by 16 racers. Of the 13 brands present in Redovan, 8 made it into the main showdown.

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September 17, 2024

Asian Buggy C/ships Season Finale track build – Indonesia

With the 2024 Asian Buggy Championships set to conclude in just under 2-weeks time (26-29 September) in Indonesia, the track build that will play host to the fourth & final round of the Championship has been revealed. The first time the Asian Buggy Championship travels to Indonesia, the country hosting the 2006 IFMAR World Championship where Mark Pavidis took the title, West Side Raceway in Jakarta has created a technical jump filled track for the occasion. Responsible for the Philippine Masters track build, the event hosting the second round of the ABC back in April, Edward Sio visited West Side Raceway prior to the season finale to check out the track. Summing up the build, Sio said, ‘The track is smooth and technical with lots of jumps. Traction is low to medium. The whole facility is top-notch, including the big driver’s area with 65-inch monitor on both ends to keep track of timing and scoring. The challenge for the driver comes from the depth of the track, and the fact there is are no straight jumps and lines. I think the only straight line is the straight-away. Overall, it’s a super fun track once you get the flow.’ Red RC is excited to be making the trip to Jakarta to cover the conclusion of the second season of the Asian Buggy Championships with Scotty Ernst already well underway with plans for the 2025 Championship.

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September 17, 2024

Gruber defends German 1:10 Nitro TC title

Capricorn’s Toni Gruber successfully defended his German 1:10 Nitro Touring Car Title, leading a 1-2 for the Italian manufacturer at the AMC-Hamm track over the weekend. Gruber, who will travel to Thailand in November as a leading contender for the World Championship title, secured the TQ for DMC event ahead team-mate Melvin Diekmann, the reigning ENS Champion the only driver apart from Gruber to top one of the 5 rounds of qualifying. Tim Benson complete the Top 3 on the grid. In the 45-minute final Gruber would set the fastest lap of the race as he cruised to the National title with over a 2-lap buffer on Diekmann. Starting 5th on the grid, Jan-Simon Knispel came through to complete the podium with his Serpent.

Image: Jumpstart RC [Facebook]

September 15, 2024

Welcome to my World (Finals) – Marcus Kaerup

RC Racing has many IFMAR World Championships that come around every two years but none of them come even close to the hype, interest, and spectacle that is 1:8 Nitro Offroad. It is the ‘Rockstar’ category of RC Racing, a 3D spectacle to watch with a field stacked with manufacturer rivalries and the greatest number of proper professional drivers. That’s not to detract from the other World Championships, each with deserving Champions, however results in 1:8 Offroad are hard earned. It is also a category that is full of young up & coming talents one of which is Marcus Kaerup. When a capacity entry of 180 drivers from around the World converge for a week of intense racing in a single category, coming away with a Top 10 finish is a mark of something special, especially when 1:8 Nitro is your ‘second class’. Getting to first meet Marcus when he made his World Championship debut in his preferred category of 1:10 Offroad World last year in Arizona, we witnessed him becoming a double World Championship Finalist, making both the 2WD & 4WD Finals at Hobby Action. Already an impressive feat that will elude many drivers, over the last week in Spain we once again witnessed Marcus exhibited why so many people are tipping him for greater things. With the Ruddog sponsored driver putting his Team Associated in the main show, his racing CV now requires updating to ‘3-time World Championship Finalist.’ Having loved over the years following and reporting on the rise of the careers of the likes of Naoto Matsukura, David Ronnefalk, Dakotah Phend, Michael Orlowski and the GOAT of offroad himself Davide Ongaro, after enjoying following his journey at RC Redovan, Red RC are super excited to do like wise with Marcus. We caught up with the 16-year-old for a quick recap on his impressive showing on Saturday’s finals day.

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September 14, 2024

The GOAT, Ongaro goes 3 in a row at 1:8 Offroad Worlds

It probably won’t be remembered as the most exciting final we’ve ever witness but RC-Redovan will be forever remembered as the place Davide Ongaro became the GOAT of the IFMAR 1:8 Offroad World Championships as he made it 3 World titles in a row today in Spain. Having been the first driver to successfully defend the title when he won at the very same location 2-years ago, the Team Associated driver would end up cruising to his fourth World title by a margin of 37-seconds over Sworkz’s Elliott Boots with Top Qualifier Juan Carlos Canas completing the podium in front of his crowd. Widely tipped as being the person who had the real potential to dethrone Ongaro, unfortunately Canas’ challenge ended with a flameout, however even if he hadn’t been caught short on his refueling in-lap, high tyre degradation left him to finish on a flailing front tyre allowing Boots to go by for second. The last World Champion prior to the start of Ongaro historic reign, that will now go on for another two years, 2016 Champion David Ronnefalk would finish fourth just ahead of Xray team-mate Bruno Coelho, the Q5 winner struggling to deliver the challenge many had tipped the Portuguese star for.

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